Make of that what you will
by PenguinofProse
Summary: A cheesy fix-it fic for that handcuff scene in 3.05. Bellarke fluff and happiness.


**a/n Here's a cheesy little do-over of ****_that_**** handcuff scene in 3.05 (Hakeldama) because the world always needs more fluff.**

Clarke hears Indra confirm that Bellamy was part of this and feels the bottom fall out of her world. At least he wanted to spare the wounded – she supposes that's something. It's not _very much_, though, a cynical voice in the back of her mind tells her. She just can't believe that he could ever be involved in an act as vile as this. What is the world coming to, when the grounders' commander is keeping the peace and Bellamy is starting a war? What hold must Pike have over him to make him lose himself like this?

She has to go to him. The realisation comes to her in a rush, all at once, much like the rush of relief she felt when she first heard him on the radio from Mount Weather. She has to go to him, and help him, and together they will put this right.

"Listen to me." She's not sure who she's trying to convince, really – whether she's going to face more opposition from Octavia or from Lexa. "I need to see Bellamy."

"Bellamy was part of this." Octavia tells her with venom. "He's with Pike. What makes you think he'll help us?"

"He saved Indra's life." She has to cling to that one bright spark of hope, for all that it is really rather small. "If what Octavia's saying is true, then Pike trusts him. If I can get to him, he can get to Pike."

"You can't just walk through the gates, Clarke. You've been living with their enemy. If it were me, I'd kill you on the spot." She knows that Lexa's words are born from concern, but she just doesn't understand how much she needs to see Bellamy and set everything back on track.

Octavia, at least, seems to be considering the idea. "I can get her in."

…...

As Octavia leads her towards the camp Clarke finds herself almost irrationally certain that everything will be OK. They may be on the verge of war, and there may be three hundred dead grounders just beyond their gates, but if Octavia can get her to Bellamy then they will find a way to put this right.

Together, they can overcome anything.

It will be just like old times, she resolves through the rosy-tinted glasses of her misremembered memories, when they looked after the best interests of the hundred and were the most effortless of teams. She's learnt from sending him into Mount Weather, and from staying in Polis when, it seems, she should have stayed with her people. When she should have stayed with him. This time they will face their problems side by side, and she will not allow them to be separated no matter what. Well, not separated beyond when it's absolutely necessary. That's probably the best she can do right now.

She allows herself to wonder, just a little, what their reunion might be like. How pleased will he be to see her after so long apart? Will he wrap her in one of those wonderful hugs, brush her hair away from her face like that time he tried to rescue her from Roan? Might absence have made the heart grow fonder, and might there even be _more_ than a hug?

Once Octavia has smuggled her into the camp and left her to wait, she does become a little more nervous. She tells herself it's only the risk of discovery that is bothering her, and reminds herself again and again how well everything will turn out just as soon as she's reunited with Bellamy.

Then he walks into the room and she feels her world crash around her shoulders.

Because even as she is gazing at his face and drinking in every detail of his appearance while he stands there whole and alive and well, he is staring at her with a mixture of surprise and disgust and confusion that she can't quite fathom. Surely, she thinks, he used to look at her rather differently from that? She wasn't imagining, was she, that there used to be quite a lot more tenderness in his eyes? Still, she is so pleased to see him that she opens with a teasing tone despite his stony expression.

"Go easy on Octavia. I had to beg her to get me into camp." She tries for a soft smile which she hopes conveys that, in fact, she has missed him really rather a lot.

"What are you doing here, Clarke?" It is immediately apparent as he bites out the question that he is not exactly as happy to see her as she is to see him.

"We need to talk."

"Oh, you've decided that. The mighty Wanheda. Who chose the Grounders over her own people, who turned her back on us when we came to rescue you. Now you want to talk."

She knows that if she lets herself realise what he's just said she will fall apart somewhat so she presses on with her prepared arguments. "The massacre of the three hundred grounders has put us on the edge of war. We can still stop it if you help me now."

"We've been at war since we landed." He snaps in response, still sounding distinctly unlike the Bellamy she left behind. "At least Pike understands that."

"Pike is the problem. He went too far. You know that." She tells herself the tone she is adopting is _conciliatory_, but even she has to admit it holds more of _pleading_. "You saved Indra for a reason. This isn't who you are."

"You're wrong." He tells her, voice hard, gaze fixed upon the wall somewhere above her head, doing a perfect impression of a well-drilled guardsman. "This is who I've always been."

She knows better. She knows he's an angry janitor with a heart of gold.

Only right now she can't quite make sense of the situation because he's not responding how he's supposed to. He's not holding her close and telling her they're OK, that he's missed her, that he'd do anything for her. He's just not being _Bellamy_ and she needs him to snap out of it.

"Bellamy, I need you." She thinks she might sound a little pathetic as her eyes grow distinctly damp at the thought, but she's fast realising that it's the truth. "I need the guy who wouldn't let me pull that lever in Mount Weather by myself. _That's_ who you really are."

He doesn't reply to that, not really. He just shakes his head and persists in that unnatural obsession with staring at the far wall. "You left me. You left everyone."

"I'm sorry." She's crying in earnest now, struggling to get the words out through her tears. "I'm sorry for leaving. I knew I could because they had you."

She sees the moment he hears her, really hears her for the first time since he walked in the room, as his shoulders physically sag and he allows himself to look her in the eye.

"But I didn't have you." He sounds almost broken, now, and she realises abruptly that, actually, he is feeling at least as emotional as she is after all. That whole stiff and proper thing was just a mask, thank goodness. "Does it ever occur to you that there might be times when I need you? That whenever that happens you're not here."

"I'm sorry, Bellamy. I had to – Lexa -"

"I've seen the way she looks at you. The way you look at her." It is an accusation, plain and simple, one he is evidently rather desperate for her to refute.

"Yes. She's fierce and loyal and brave, and she really _cares_ about her people - sound familiar?" She gives him a pointed look through her damp eyelashes before she continues. "We kissed once. When you were in Mount Weather. It was a good kiss, but we've not done it again. Make of that what you will."

It seems that he makes of it exactly what she wanted him to, as the fight rushes out of him and he takes one small step towards her. Suddenly, she thinks, he seems an awful lot closer. She can almost feel his warm arms wrapping around her, now.

"I'm still angry with you." She can't help feeling, though, that really he sounds only _exhausted_.

"I realise that. I'm angry with me too." She admits, averting her gaze to the floor.

He doesn't answer that, as such, but carries on making her feel even more awful instead. "You know you're not the only one who found it hard to come home after Mount Weather."

"I know. I know. It didn't help, running away from the problem."

"No. I didn't think it would." He tells her with the faintest hint of a wry smile.

"It turns out most problems are easier to face when we face them as a team." She expects him to agree with her, but she realises she's jumped forward too far too quickly when his mouth reverts very abruptly to a frown.

"What do you want from me, Clarke?"

"I want you to tell me that the Bellamy I thought I knew is still in there." She begs, desperate to pull back from her mistake. "And then I want you to help me hand Pike over to Lexa."

"She'd take me too. You know that. I was there, I shot my share of her soldiers." He shrugs, as if to impress upon her that this doesn't bother him in the slightest, but she knows him too well to be fooled.

"She won't let anything happen to you, I promise. She'll be grateful that you turned Pike in and... she knows how much you mean to me." His eyes smile just a hint on hearing her words and that is the moment that she knows all will, in fact, be well.

"You seem awfully sure that I'm going to do this."

"I'll always have faith in you, Bellamy. Even when you don't have faith in yourself." He lets out a long sigh at that and slowly, gradually, as if giving himself time to think better of his decision, he pulls a chair up to the table and takes a seat. She can't help but notice that he's chosen to sit next to her, thigh up against hers, rather than maintaining the distance he has preserved between them since entering the room.

"What's the plan?"

"Find an excuse to get Pike out of camp. With as few soldiers as possible, and preferably ones we know are loyal to you not him. Miller, Monty, Harper. Get him to Lincoln's cave at midday tomorrow. We'll meet you there and take him in."

"So you have to leave again, then, I suppose?" He shifts a little in his chair and for a brief insane moment she dares to dream that he might be wondering about reaching out to her.

"I guess I do. I don't want to but I don't think I'll be welcome here. But – I won't really be leaving this time. Not like before. Octavia has a radio if you want to talk." She takes a deep breath and summons her courage before saying what she really wants to say. "At least this time you'll know I'd be here with you if I could."

"I'm not sure that makes it any better."

"When this is all over, I won't leave again." She promises vehemently and reaches out to take his hand. And of course, because he is still Bellamy, no matter what the world may throw at them, he meets her half way.

"I don't think you can promise that. We have no idea what might happen next on this crazy planet."

"No, Bellamy. I can promise that. Because I know, now, how much better things are when we stick together."

She ought to leave it at that and sneak back out of camp before anyone sees her. She certainly shouldn't push her luck when he's barely forgiven her. After all, she'll see him again tomorrow and then they'll have all the time in the world.

Of course, on this _crazy planet_, who knows how much time that might be? It's that thought, really, that makes her do it. She only has to turn her head to the left and up just a fraction, he is sitting so close, and then his mouth is right there and it is the work of barely a moment to touch her lips ever so gently to his. She's not sure what she's expecting – in fact, she is deliberately expecting nothing, afraid to let herself hope – so she is pleasantly surprised when he follows her as she tries to pull away. It's a soft kiss, almost _polite_ in its tentative exploration, but no less beautiful for all that. And it is everything that she ever wished for as she daydreamed her way through breaking into camp, and it is more.

She lets time slip away from her for longer than she really should, but eventually she does pull back and rest her forehead against his.

"I have to go." She tells him regretfully. "I'll see you tomorrow. And then – well, it would be a good idea to try that again, I think. Make of that what you will."

"I'll be borrowing O's radio tonight. And not to talk about the plan."

He is half way to the door before he turns back to press his lips gently against hers once more.

"Make of that what you will." He tells her with a grin as he slips out of the room.

**a/n Thanks for reading!**


End file.
